Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-08-17

Iyou wickedly neglected it. "Oh," say
tsome one, 81 have more faith than you;
believe when | go out of this world, thu
: Lord will provide for them" Go to Black
well Island, go through all the poor-houses
of the country, and will show you how
often God provides for the neglected chill
dren of neglectful parents. That is, He
provides for them through public charity
As for myself, would rather have the Lord
provide for my family in private home
, and through my own industry, and pater.
nal, and conjugal faithfulness. But says
some man: 81 mean in the next ten OF
twenty years to make great fortune, and
so l shall leave my family, when go out
of this world, very comfortable" How do
you know that you are going to live ten OF
twenty years? If we could look up the
highway of the future, we could see il
tcrossed by pneumonias, and pleurisies, and
tcOnsumptions, and colliding rail trains, and
runaway horses, and breaking bridges, and
funeral professions. Are you so certain
you are going to live ten or twenty years,
you can warrant your household any COM
fort after you go away from them? Beside
that, the vast majority of men die poorl
Two only out of a hundred succeed in busi-
ness. Are you very certain you are going
to be one of the two? Rich one day, poor
the next. A man in New York got two
| million of dollars, and the money turned
his brain, and he died in the lunatic asy-
lum. All his property was left with the
| business firm, and they swampt it; and then
| the family of the insane man were left with
out dollar. In eighteen months the pros
perity, the insanity, the insolvency, and the
| complete domestic ruin. Beside that, there
are men who die solvent, who arc insolvent
before they get under the ground or before
their estate is settled up. How soon the
auctioneer's mallet can knock the life out
| of an estate. A man thinks the property
is worth fifteen thousand dollars; under a
| forced sale it brings seven thousand dollars.
| The business man takes advantage of the
crisis, and he compels the widow of his de-
ceased partner to sell out to him at ruin
! Gus price or lose all. The stock was sup
posed to be very valuable, but it has been
SO wasted" that when the executor tries
to sell it, he is laughed out OF Wall street,
| or the administrator is ordered by the sur
| rogate to wind up the whole affair. The
estate was supposed at the mans death, to
| be worth sixty thousand dollars; but after
| the Indebtedness had been met, and the
| bills of the doctor, and the undertaken, and
| the tombstone-cutter have been paid, there
| are to come home from school and go to
work. That means the complete hardship
of the wife, turned out with nothing but a
| needle to fight the great battle Of the world.
Tear down the lambrequins, close the piano,
rip up the Administer, sell out the ward
| robe, and let the mother take q child in
each hand, and trudge out into the desert
of the world. A life insurance would have
hindered all that.
But says some one: ''I am a man of
small means. and can't afford to pay the
premium" That is sometimes lawful
and a genuine excuse, and there is no an
swer to it; but in nine cases out of ten
when q man says that, he smokes up in ci-
gars, and drinks down in wine, and expends
in luxuries enough money to have paid the
premium on n life insurance policy, which
would have kept his family from beggary
when lie is dead. A man ought to put him
self down on the strictest economy, until
he can meet this Christian necessity. You
have no right to the luxuries of life, until
GU have made such provision. l admire
what was said by Rev. DR.. Guthrie, the
great Scottish preacher. A lew years be-
fore his death he stood in q public meeting
and declared: fWhen came to Edinburgh
the people sometimes laughed at my blue
stockings, and at my cotton umbrella, and
they said I looked like common plough
man, and they derided me because l lived
in a house for which I paid thirty-fve
pounds rent year, and oftentimes |
walked when would have been very glad
to have a cab; but gentlemen, I did all that
because I wanted to pay the premium on a
life insurance, that wouid keep my family
comfortable if l should die" That I take
to be the right expression of an honest, in
telligent, Christian man.
The utter indifference of many people on
this important subject accounts for mach of
the crime aud the pauperism of this day.
Who are these children sweeping the cross
ings with broken broom and begging Of you
a penny as you go by? Who are these lost
souls gliding uuder the gaslight in thin
shawls? All, they are the victims of want;
in many of the cases the forecast of parents
and grandparents might have prohibited it.
God only knows how they struggled to do
right. They prayed until the tears froze on
their checks, they sewed on the sack until
the breaking Of the dav; but they could not
get enough money to pay the rent, they
could not get enough money to decently
clothe themselves; aud one day, in that
wretched home, the angel of purity and the
angel of crime fought a great fight between
the empty bread,tray and the fireless hearth,
and the black winged angel shricked: "Aha!
have won the day" Says some man: 81
believe what you say; it is right and Chris
tian, and l mean sometime to attend to this
matter" EIy friend, you are going to lose
way the sinner loses heaven, by procrasti-
nation. l see all around me the destitute
and suffering families ofparents who meant
some day to attend to this Christian duty.
During the process of adjournment the mau
gets his feet wet, then comes a chill and de-
lirium and the doleful shake of the DOCTORS
head, and the obsequies. If there be any
thing more pitlable than woman delicate
ly brought up, and On her marriage day by
an indulgeDt father given to man to whom
she is the chief joy and pride of life until
the moment Of his death, and then that
same woman going out with helpless chill
dren at her back to struggle for bread in a
world where brawny muscle and rugged
sonl are necessary-I say, if there be any
thing more pitiable than that, l do not know
what it is. And yet there are good women
who are Indifferent in regard to their hus-
bands duty in this respect; and there are
those positively hostile, as though a life in
surance subjected a man to some fatality.
There is in Brooklyn to-day very poor
NUudu h6tplu3 d oI1tiI Cautiy ouop, VIII
vehemently opposed the insurance of her
husbands life, and when application had
been made for policy Of ten thousand
dollars she frustrated it. She would never
have document in the house that implied
it was possible for her husband ever to die.
One day, in quick revolution of machinery,
his life was Instantly dashed out. What is
the sequel? She is, with annoying tug,
making the half ofa miserable living. Her
two children have been taken away from
her in order that they may be clothed and
schooled, and her life is to be prolonged
hardship. o man, before forty eight hours
have passed away, appear at the desk of
some of our great life insurance companies,
have the stethescope ofthe physician put to
your heart and lungs, and by the seal Of
sonre honest company decree that your
children shall not be subjected to the humi-
liation Of financial struggle in the days of
your demise.
But must ask the men engaged in life